Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel (Nobel Acceptance Speech)

From that day on I stopped tormenting Buffo,

Jerry Spinelli -- Milkweed

Show more

Do not torment me:

William Shakespeare -- The Tempest

For months she’d been tormented by the thought that Pedro had lied to her on his wedding day, that he’d told her he loved her just so she wouldn’t suffer, or that as time went on, he really had grown to love Rosaura.

Laura Esquivel -- Like Water for Chocolate

If we don’t want him tormenting us with algebra or Irish grammar all we have to do is ask him a question about America and that gets him so excited he might go on for the whole day.

Frank McCourt -- Angela’s Ashes

...who knows what fears tormented his child’s mind?

Kamala Markandaya -- Nectar in a Sieve

He spent the night awake, tormented by the pain of his sores.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- One Hundred Years of Solitude

People in the house were tormented almost to death by his incessant fumbling cornet practice.

Betty Smith -- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Show more again

Flattering me into tormenting them because he ... loved viciousness.

John Gardner -- Grendel

"I hope this pleases you" (turning her back on him); "I hope your eyes are not tormented now."

Jane Austen -- Northanger Abbey

Consider finally that the torment of this infernal prison is increased by the company of the damned themselves.

James Joyce -- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

What tormented Ivan Ilych most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying

Leo Tolstoy -- The Death of Ivan Ilych

Up to this moment jealousy had not been one of his torments; now it suddenly gnawed at his heart.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- The Idiot

I know you want to comfort me, but don’t you see, you torment me far more than if you told me the truth? I cannot bear the uncertainty.

Erich Maria Remarque -- All Quiet on the Western Front

We were tormented with hunger.

Elie Wiesel -- Night

A non-com, can torment a private, a lieutenant a non-com, a captain a lieutenant, until he goes mad.

Erich Maria Remarque -- All Quiet on the Western Front

Quit tormenting your aunt, Jean Louise.

Harper Lee -- Go Set a Watchman

When I approach, the leather-armored auxes, who usually delight in tormenting slaves, barely notice me.

Sabaa Tahir -- An Ember in the Ashes

I gave the classic one-finger salute to my tormentor.

Laurie Halse Anderson -- The Impossible Knife of Memory

If later that night she sat and stared at the gun in her lap, and conjured up the faces of all the people who’d tormented her over the years.

Lauren Oliver -- Before I Fall

Type two: the former victims of type ones, who see every Unwind as the kid who tormented them all those years ago.

Neal Shusterman -- Unwind

The only thing I’ve accomplished in life is to help set up an experiment that failed and tormented a bunch of kids.

James Dashner -- The Death Cure

My greatest torment, however, has become thirst.

Nicholas Sparks -- The Longest Ride

The faeries love to tease and torment humans; only Shadowhunters prevent them.

Cassandra Clare -- City of Heavenly Fire

Back in the present, these thoughts tormented Mark for at least another hour—and he knew if he dreamed it would only get worse.

James Dashner -- The Kill Order

It’s like a cool bath after a fever sweat, helping to soothe the itch of all those unanswerable questions I just can’t be tormenting myself with anymore.

Gayle Forman -- Where She Went

Just to torment me with his perfection, he also insisted on being one of the smartest.

Rick Yancey -- The 5th Wave

The man was astonished and apologized for having tormented him.

Malala Yousafzai -- I Am Malala

I wished she hadn’t said anything; now I was afraid he’d single her out for torment.

Ransom Riggs -- Hollow City

He was tormented by the idea that he was hiding here while his people, both Jews and peculiars, were being slaughtered.

Ransom Riggs -- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

He was a smart, sensitive child who was tormented by what he’d done and what he’d been through.

Bryan Stevenson -- Just Mercy

He saw her life was hard, full of misfortune and torment at the hands of demons and bad men.

Patrick Rothfuss -- The Name of the Wind

…again, too, of what it would mean for Patrick Hickey to survive, of the awful accident or gradual demise of another young boy or girl with the exactly right heart, and I begin to imagine—or even hope—that the necessary and terrible thing will happen, just come to pass, for it seems that if there should be a price to pay for darkly willing an innocent person’s fate, I may as well pay it, and not the beleaguered Hickeys, who must endure constant torment by such conflicting thoughts.

Chang-rae Lee -- A Gesture Life

A good many of my relatives from this generation seem to have tormented the church sexually.

Michael Ondaatje -- Running in the Family

There’s not much I can do to ease her torment when she’s like this.

Susan Ee -- Angelfall

"Hangnails," I suggested, trying to squirm away from my tormentor.

Rick Riordan -- The Trials of Apollo

At dinner, an older boy named Vic Morgeroff had tormented Reynie for using the word "enjoyable" to describe the book he was reading.

Trenton Lee Stewart -- The Mysterious Benedict Society

Of course, we don’t torment them here in Connecticut.

Elizabeth George Speare -- The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Understanding the dismissal, her tormentor grunted and released her.

Sarah J. Maas -- Throne of Glass

You will do the actual tormenting; I will only spectate.

William Goldman -- The Princess Bride

As for the Beans Boys, as they sometimes called themselves, by spring they had tired of tormenting Dorothy and pretty much ignored her.

Jerry Spinelli -- Wringer

But your fetters torment me.

Gail Carson Levine -- Ella Enchanted

A noise came from her mouth and slowly, her first breath of grief grew into a tormented cry.

Pam Munoz Ryan -- Esperanza Rising

In front of it were two yellow buses, our own tormentor and one that brought students from the other direction, and loitering students awaiting the knell of the morning bell.

Mildred D. Taylor -- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she had ever seen, far more nauseating than anything she had ever imagined with her conscious mind, or that had ever tormented her in her most terrible nightmares.

Madeleine L’Engle -- A Wrinkle in Time

Torment, yes.

Rebecca Stead -- When You Reach Me

Only the throbbing veins in her tightly clasped hands told of her torment.

Ellen Raskin -- The Westing Game

I described to him in detail everything that had happened between us, including the look of torment and hatred on Junior’s face the night I went to his house.